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“If you want war, I am ready. I will not end it, though it lasted a hundred years and killed twenty thousand of my men.”

Source: Letter to Victor Ballot, governor of Porto-Novo, 19 April 1892, in Béhanzin : correspondances et discours (Cahiers de la Fondation Zinsou, Cotonou, 2006), p. 20

Context Written to the governor of Porto-Novo days after learning that the French chamber had voted for war, the letter set out what the kingdom would fight for and how long it could hold out.

Portrait of Béhanzin
BéhanzinBenin · c. 1845–1906
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